Ep 9: David Letterman Makes it Six

did we applaud after you mentioned that?

No, I didn't. You saved it. Save your applause for her. I have a book. Other things.

Movie credits and things, I'll say later. I was talking to Peter and I said, how I love John Belushi, you know, and I know his grave is out there. And he goes, what would you like me to bring you to his grave, and go, yeah, I would love it.

And so it was the middle of the night, and I was doing a movie with Drew Barrymore. Peter pitch. Thank you. So he will took Drew and he dropped me off with the six pack of beer at Belushi's grave in the middle of the night and left me, in the graveyard for about a good hour.

His pitch black, I mean there's no light in Martha Vindier. No, no. No, we have something here. Well, that's a podcast. You have a book.

Yes, you have a book. John's.

That's the wardrobe for audio.

We're morning John Belushi, Jimmy just found out he died. Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah.

Is Jim okay? Jim's fine. Jim's fine. Jim's fine. Oh, it's just slapping people around him?

Yeah, he's fine.

“So Jimmy, what was the inside of spending an hour in the graveyard?”

I said what I wanted to say to him, and that I loved him, and, you know, I kind of got that out of the way. Bill, five minutes into it, and then I kind of got just scared. And I didn't really have a phone or no what the plan was when anyone was going to come back and get me.

So I just kind of, I kind of finished off a six pack and just waited and then Peter fairly picked me up. Just says all the earmarks of a prank. Yeah. A six pack might have been the issue there.

Yeah, it wasn't even a thing. You lose his grave. That's right. How would you know? And what would you care?

That's right. Hey Mike, are we rolling on this? Because I mean, this is a magic. You don't need a formal introduction to the show, do we? And I actually wanted to ask Dave about John Belushi because David Letterman is here with us.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. The very fortunate because I really, and I have to say, and I don't, Dave, you hate

this kind of stuff. I don't know that any of us would be doing our jobs. Were it not for you. And I wouldn't. Or sure.

Or I'd be. I think that's a very kind.

“I think it's misguided, but I think it's very kind.”

Now I would like to say a couple of things. One, I invited myself onto this production and people, I don't know if it was a consensus. But here I am. So thank you for that. And secondarily, how does this work?

Are we all in or is this a bit of a scam? Is there a cut? What is going on exactly? I don't need to look at the books, but I'm just curious. Everybody's getting their beak wet here.

Don't worry about it. Don't worry. No, no. All the money is going to you, too. Are you, Chris?

Well. Hey, down on. The other big here, baby. Yeah. You'll get a taste of the big.

No, everything here is going to our staff and crew who are out of work. Okay. Right, Jimmy. That's where the money is going, Jimmy. To the staff.

Yeah. And what can I ask, specifically, numbers here?

“What do we, what is, as the kids say, along with getting our beaks wet?”

What is the nut? You're coming in less as a guest and more as an auditor here, Dave, a guest and that you're attending. I'm just curious. Can we see some ID?

Yeah. Don't worry. We would like a lawyer present before, because the IRS got to you, too, Letterman. No, I just was under the impression early that this would be free. Let's just say we're doing okay, Dave.

And where, from where does this money come from, are we taking mostly Ryan Reynolds? Yeah. Primarily, Ryan Reynolds in the fight sponsors of Diagio liquor products. Today, kettle one is our sponsor and mint mobile. Whoa.

Those sponsors today. Yeah. This is fantastic. Congratulations. Congratulations.

We can get a lot of money. And Ryan Reynolds says he doesn't miss it even a little bit. Dave, John Bolushi, was he, I don't remember him ever being a guest on your show. No. Interestingly enough, perhaps only interesting to me, early on in the six A version of

the show, he passed away. And we get a call almost immediately from the people at night line. I think Ted Koppel, running that show at the time, wanting me to talk about John Bolushi.

And it just seemed silly because I had never met the man.

And so I, I demured, I passed on that. Did anybody here work with the man? No. Never met him. I never, never worked with him.

He was kind of frightening in his, in his energy. And what I had read of him, he was the kind of atomic and electric and always charge

I was at Second City for, you know, for many years.

And the people who had been there when he was there said, you just could look at anybody else on stage. When he was there. Kind of like Farley was that way. Yeah.

Well, they only wanted, only wanted to watch him when he was on. Well, they certainly seem to be from the same mold.

“Did you hang with any of the SNL staff in the NBC show?”

Do you talk to me? Yes, Dave. Oh, no. We're only talking to you today. I've heard the word hang and he was out.

Oh, no questions are for you. I hope you hide straight. We're doing an impression of Robert Denew. That's right. That's pretty good.

No, I didn't, I was, no, I don't, this is the most group of people with commonality I spent time with in my life. Interesting, though. It didn't like a couple of writers went back and forth, like Jim Downey. Jim Downey, yes.

The Lorne Michaels decided he was going to be a part of SNL. And so he left. And with him, many of his writers, chief among them Jim Downey, who was, I think, well, no him and have had experiences with him, and one of the funniest people one comes across. And he came and helped out with our show for a while.

And that was a great experience. We've been asking each other certain questions that only hosts of one of these shows would, you know, even really probably care to hear the answer about, so I don't know if anybody is going to listen. But we asked this question of John Stuart when it's here, too.

“Can you describe to us what your very first show was like?”

And I'm sorry to grab the mic here, Camel, because I don't know. Go ahead. But can you describe this what your very first show was like and you can do day time or late now? OK.

First of all, you take turns being the host of this. We do, yeah. So I could have waited for another day and not had a camel. I did pull the rip cord right now. Yeah, you can only find me to say it's lower though, Dave.

The intensity brought through that with every chain before the bullet. And John Stuart was a guest on this? Yep. A couple shows ago for heaven's sake. Did you invite him or did he invite himself?

Hey, he kind of invited himself, too. OK.

It's like, hey, you guys never need to.

Yeah. Well, that was me for sure. John is part of our, this started just, we're talking about our issues that we're dealing with when it comes to the strike and John would join us from time to time. And so in a way, he is like the Billy Preston of this group.

Well, my, what an app comparison. Good have a different force. If you had a comparison from John Stuart, anyone. Dave, I watched your first show. I watched the morning show.

Morning show. That's the one that I would want to talk about because the pain is still searing. The producer of that show, we were to go on the air Monday and it was going to be an hour and a half live on NBC Daytime. And the producer of the show quit on Friday.

So we were rudderless going into the first show. And one of the things we had a gentleman who I can't recall, who was a television critic for ABC and a nice smart fellow, I just can't remember his name. So he was in the green room reviewing the show as it unfolded. And good lord, I wish it had unfolded.

It just never really did unfold.

At the end of the 90 minutes, it was still folded and he was nice enough to come on to the show. Well, that was, that was 90 minutes, you know, sort of like that. And it was horrifying. The only, the only good thing about it I recall was we were done by 10, 30, or whenever

we were done and I had the rest of the day free. That's the only good thing I remember about it. You remember how you started that first show? No. It was a wash of anxiety, honestly.

You were in the studio audience. We did not see you on stage. You were talking to people and you told one of the guys in the audience, you hadn't eaten anything for breakfast and you sent them out to get food. Ah, you sent them out.

Oh, man. Yes. A breakfast. Just genius. I do remember two things about it.

We had a fellow who was a writer, who was a standup comic and a writer. He was up on the, there, there used to be it.

“I think still is a 30, rock, a courtyard about eight floors up and shot from a certain angle.”

It looks like you're peering out into the great horizon of New York City and a direct fall down to the street of about eight floors. And so he was on that ledge safely on the ledge. But the appearance was, if you made a move, he was going to be falling to his death. So we were looking for him, the premise where is Larry, he's named by the way, it's not

Larry. I don't remember his name. And I'm sorry, it's just because I don't remember anything. So anyway, all there he is, he's up there taking an app, and Larry, it's time to come

So we have disturbed Larry from his nap.

He rolls over and plunges to his death. That was the visual impression. And the people from NBC, Barbara Gallinger, that name I remember, comes running out and says, no, you can't let people think that this man is plunged to his death.

“You have to have him back in the studio and we thought, oh, okay, okay.”

So at the end of the show, there was Larry sitting in the front row, not dead. I remember that. And then a few weeks later, my girlfriend, Marilyn, I, we're having lunch in Connecticut in Mystic Seaport, and there was a big six-page story in the New York Times how we had destroyed NBC's daytime lineup.

And that's kind of what the experience was like every day there.

Who's idea was the morning show, like to do for you to do a morning show was that you

or did someone say, hey, how about a morning show? Yeah, someone said, hey, how about a morning show, and that was Fred Silverman. And Fred Silverman thought that we would get together and have a morning show and with the family, there are morning shows like that, like the view comes to mind, there's a family of people.

ESPN has two or three of these morning shows with the family of people. And we were to have a morning show and it was sort of like, Fred thought it might be something like the old Arthur Godfrey programs back in the '50s, pardon me for that. And family of people, to me, was a whole different concept and it turned out I was wrong. Well, on the view, very few people plunge to their death.

That's the one, yeah, on camera, very few people plunge to their death.

Dave, why did your producer quit on the Friday?

“Did you disagree about the direction of the morning show?”

Yes, we wanted it to be entertaining and he was not fond of that concept. He was a very successful producer in the game show world and he and I kind of had a friendship. And I can remember we wanted to have like a monitor with cue cards on it or whatever those things are or cue cards. And he didn't want to spend the money, so he had one of his sons write everything up

on construction, cardboard, whatever those are. And he just had had it Friday before the show and left and it was an acrimonious departure. I'm imagining this son being like eight years old, was he at least an adult? No, no, he had adult kids who were all very nice and everything was fine with the kids. The old man just didn't want to be dragged down by this.

It was clearly a mistake on his part and a mistake on my part. And we proved that right up until the time it was too late to do anything about it. And I have no hard feelings about it. The whole thing was he'll conceive, perhaps not ill-conceived, but certainly poorly executed. And it's just one of those memories of, oh yeah, I do everything the hard way.

Did you think it was all over? Career-wise? Yes, yes, I absolutely did, because I had the evidence to support that. Six page story in the New York Times, how I had ruined a television network. Yeah, that's pretty good.

You are going to the end of the line. Yeah, that's a career of it. It doesn't go on the resume. And it almost impressively showed him out of time. He's destroyed daytime.

Yeah, I thought, yeah, they did, they just inviserated the network. And the affiliates were wanting that time back to themselves and they all got it. We got it. Their daytime juggernaut, which had been three successful game shows, three half-hour shows, gone, good night.

Yeah, I thought it was over. And I went into, yeah, it was a terrible, terrible year, thinking, well, here I am back at the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa. That's good. Yeah, that's good.

“How long between the ending of the morning and then starting late night?”

We were on the air in the morning, I don't know, six weeks. And similar to the run of Gunsmoke. And then I think I came back a year and a half later, but it was horrifying. I was timid and embarrassed and miserable and nearly drank myself to death and, you know, like that.

Well, there had to be somebody at NBC who was advocating for you to bring you back after you almost destroyed the network. Who was your champion? Yes, it was Brandon Tartakov. Brandon Tartakov was a true gentleman and recognized that it had been a misplacement in time.

But I think it was all my fault, because I could have played along with Fred Silverman's vision of it, but I just thought, well, that's, I don't know how many of you guys felt this way about yourselves early on. I was under the impression that America couldn't wait to have me on television.

You know how TV stings? Well, when I get there, and it turned out once that was wrong. And one of the other questions that, one of the other things we've been talking about is,

“what is the first talk show that you were a guest on?”

I think that would have been a Canadian affair. I think that would have been, there was a show in Vancouver, Bruno Jerrusi's celebrity chefs. Wow. And then there was, I think, Alan Thick.

Was that only broadcast in Newfoundland? What? Who is Bruno Jerrusi? And are you a celebrity chef and we just didn't know? That's right.

Yes, to everything, your honor. Yeah. And almost every show I did, the Alan Thick show in Toronto or Montreal or where it was. Every time I was booked on one of these shows and it was really great for comics in Los Angeles because it had everything was the same about an appearance on a talk show except there was

no one watching. So it was ideal and they would fly you up and put you in the four seasons and you got to spend 36 hours in a very nice Canadian city. And you just go up there and bomb and no one cared. But Bruno Jerrusi's celebrity chefs, Bruno was not there.

Alan Thick was not there. Somebody else was there and there was another show that I did.

Those are the first shows.

Everybody did them myself and Narob and Williams and Jay Leno and everybody did them and it was just great. It was like instructional league baseball.

“Did you all get together and talk about it and go, how did you bomb on Bruno?”

Yes. Yes. But I do remember what I cooked which had to have been your next question. That's right. Yes.

You know Alfredo. Thank you. We'll be right back. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. We're going to have that recipe on the website at the end of today's podcast. Well, you're silly if you lose some ingredients from Instagram. Those were a stand up spots, right Dave?

When was the first time you were a panel guest where you were?

I don't think I ever did panel and no stand up on Bruno Jerrusi's celebrity chefs. I don't remember who was hosting. But then there was a show, David Steinberg. Steinberg was the host in Toronto and I did stand up there and it was silent. It was quiet.

And then the best part of it to cement the ignominy, everybody got together in the hosts sweet back at the four seasons to mingle after the show had, oh my God was that terrifying. Just horrible. Oh, you're the one with leprosy. Sure.

Come on in. We want to talk to you. Did you guys get together and watch your appearances on Carson, et cetera? No, we left that to Jay, Jay would gather everybody to watch. And then he would get the spin on that shot out as quickly as he could.

How many times did you appear on Carson or anything before you even felt a little famous? Yeah, that's a good question, but not a good question, it just something that gives me time for an answer. So that's why I said it. It was a softball.

It was a big one. It was a fun question. It sure is Mike. At the beginning of his answers, Jimmy has known for his clock tablet. Oh, God bless his mic and then brace it up when he starts saying that.

I don't know. I do know this once I was on the tonight show, good or bad. I can remember being on the tonight show and then having a flight of New York for something, and I was in the elevator coming down in the hotel to go out and do something early in the morning, perhaps breakfast.

And a guy gets on the elevator with me and he looks at me and he says, "I saw you last night where you was nervous as you seemed."

“And of course, you can't defend that, so you have to roll over it.”

Yes, I'm nervous now. Almost immediately after the night show, people right up until today were nicer to me than they had been to me before I was on television on a network television show. And I don't know. Did you gentlemen experience that once you became kind of known that you were part

of Americans would work where people automatically more gracious? I mean, for us it was you being on your show. Oh, please, was, no, it was the mild, you have to know that you're such a milestone

for anybody who are on your show and everybody knows, like the first time I ever got calls

from old friends, they'd see me on your show. Hmm. Well, that's interesting, I remember when I told my parents I was doing your show the first time, my dad said, "No, no Bruno Jerucy, though."

the intros for the show without my name in them.

I'm so sorry, you know, I don't know how you gentlemen feel about it, but there is an

“energy that takes over that subsumes any sort of emotional humanity when you have to turn”

out a show every stinking night and there is collateral damage and I would just like to say to everyone, "I'm so sorry, Jimmy, you represent a pretty long history of the thing behavior." That was relieved, that was fine with being bombed, everyone around me was upset, but I was like, "Oh my God, thank God, I can have six months to think about this."

I can remember when we were in six A, and by the way, six A, those studios now, like

four seasons hotels, they're just beautiful, they're gift shops, they're as a restaurant,

it's not a restaurant, yeah, but that was a restaurant, no we had to take care of that on the street before he came up, but so anyway, we had the Red Hot Chili Peppers on, and this is, I don't know, in the early '80s, and for one reason or another, they got bombed, and the reason, of course, would be me, and they, because they were rock and roll at its finest, they decided that they would wreck the dressing room.

Well, if you were in the dressing rooms in those days, there was nothing in their direct. There was a chair, a chair, and kind of a love-seed, covered in vinyl, and that was it, but they went busy and turned over that chair and kicked the vinyl love-seed, boy did they show me?

So, Dave, you were obviously Johnny Carson was very influential on you personally and then

very helpful when it came to your career. How did it happen? Like, when you're on Johnny, and you did well, obviously, does Johnny then call you after the show? How do you form a relationship with Johnny Carson?

Right, this is another good question, and everybody here worked with Mr. Carson or not. He had come and gone before you guys were already much before we all broke. I did have a relationship with Johnny Carson, because of Peter Lassale, who was one of his producers. Peter Lassale befriended a lot of people on that show, Gary Shandling, and myself, and Martin

Moe, and anybody else who was regularly on the show that he took a liking to, and that was very useful, and through Peter Lassale, my girlfriend and I at the time went to dinner with the Carson and his wife and Peter and his wife, Alice, and that was the kind of the off-stage off-camera relationship that we got, and it was all due to Peter. But let, I'm going to hear something about you guys, Seth, I was on your show a long time

“ago, and thought that was just great fun, and I was wondering, was that all right for you?”

We had to go back and do some trims, no, it was exceptional. It was exceptional, and it was very special, it was the 40th anniversary of the franchise. We had you on for that. Yeah, I thought that was very kind of you to include me on that. It was lovely, and we don't we do a Q&A at the end of the show, and you were kind of

enough to stay for the Q&A. Well, was I supposed to do a Q&A, or did I just invite you? We did invite you, it was a very different, it was different than this podcast, where again, we can't be clear enough that you invited yourself on the podcast, but I didn't invite you. You know, I feel awful now knowing that what's his name has invited himself in, and

John Stuart has been a mainstay, but you were all on, we've all been on shows together, right? Yes, we all know, we've all been on your show.

“Yeah, that's what I mean, you've been on my show, and you're the only, and I've not been”

on John's show, no, we don't we don't have guests, but I would snob in that show, and that's it, I, I, Jay, Dave, I'd love to have you on the late show, would, would be, would going back to the end of the album, be a fun thing for you, we're just a weird thing. Well, now it would be okay, I, I will, does anybody really want to hear this or not? Yeah, 100%, no thanks, whatever this is, just take your time to have you and speak as you can.

We had so much of the actual aspect of it, but I love Fallon, the only one with the guts to speak

Thank you, thank you very much, no problem, no, the story wasn't here, when, when we moved to the Ed Sullivan Theater, we had to go shopping for places to do the show, and there was like six or seven in the running, how gurney took a liking to the Ed Sullivan Theater, which in those days was called something else, but it was still the Ed Sullivan Theater, and it was full of rubble, it had decayed and destroyed in and of itself, and literally

the cement concrete dust in the air would, you'd get emphysema just knowing somebody who had been in there. Kathleen Anchors and how gurney, when in there and thought, no, no, let's, let's put this theater back together, so it went from an active hard-hat construction site to what became the home of our show for X number of years, and it was because of that connection,

and because of the time that I spent in that building, that I always felt like, I don't

think I can go back in there, similar to the way one might feel about returning to high school, although of course I'd never went to high school, but I just had an emotional kind of anti-energy about the place, but the good news is I'm over that. What was that Jimmy, was that all right? Yeah, I thought that was pretty good.

Like a high school thing, yeah, that was great. You came to NBC once, remember, we had Paul Schaefer on the show, he was interested to be a guest, and you came and you go, Jimmy, you were backstage, you know, we didn't have any of this, you were saying what you were saying earlier, but you had a line that maybe laughed you go, I mean, seriously, this, we had none of this, because I'm jealous of

your linoleum. Yeah, exactly, I mean, our setup was like a state park restroom, you know, compared to what it is now, to now it's crazy.

“Yeah, and I think Lauren was there too, and you were going, but Lauren and you were going,”

is that how it looks on the, when it goes broadcasts, does it look that good on the monitor? Is that what it looks like? And you was like, yeah, do you enjoy being a guest on a show? No, it's a lot of work. So a lot of work, and if you don't do well, each, I do, I eat my liver for about a month.

Now here, the stakes are so low, what do I care? I mean, the staff is getting their millions, that's all I care about. That's might be a good segue, because we do have commercial from our friend Ryan Reynolds and our friends at Mint Mobile, and I thought Dave might want to hear that. Okay, roll it.

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds owner at Mint Mobile, and host of the first ever podcast with

in a podcast that I'm calling, "Save Force 15." Though we know guests, no news, no thrilling prime to revisit, just me. And 14 of my colleagues at Mint Mobile, talking about making unlimited premium wireless available for $15 a month for a limited time. Now, I know what you're thinking, how can unlimited wireless for just $15 a month be good?

And how can there be two podcasts? So similarly, devoid of any entertainment value. Well, there can't be. I've just received a message telling me that Save Force 15 has been cancelled, but that message came through loud and clear in my Mint Mobile phone for the amazing little price

of just $15 a month. You want to learn more? Go to Mint Mobile.com/strikeforce today. No, that one's not for me, no, that's for the five host of tiers. I think we all know what that's about.

45 dollars a priori require a plus tax increase. Dream of Pomerate, renews a full price. Some of the time for new customers only, that speech reduced after 40 gigabytes per month when limited videos, streams of quarantine ADP, doesn't minimumable.com. Yeah.

Oscar tiers. What does he, I don't, I don't know what Mint Mobile is.

“Does anybody really understand what this guy has up to?”

This is exactly the kind of ad placement they're looking for, Dave.

You've always been good at this.

You've always been really good at honoring the sponsor in the network. You're a little bit of a sound like a scoundrel. It's a money laundering scheme. Yeah. That would make more sense.

You know, he bought the soccer team in Wales, and that turned it into like a huge deal. And I just, I mean, he has, he has enough money, doesn't he? He owns a company, and he owns a soccer team, and he owns a Mint company, and he's dead pool, and that's enough. Well, he's getting ready for an enormous crash.

That will come. It has to know it. That's where the customers will hear this. I think it starts sponsoring us. Yeah.

Talk to you about how cold your studio was because was it that cold at 30 rock?

“Or was that something you did specifically for the Ed Sullivan?”

Because it's legendary. We all talked about it. I personally approve of it. Thank you. But quite as cold as you is.

Yes. But I love, I call it comedy weather. Yes. Because if they're chattering their teeth, that's true. That's true.

That's true. That's true. Well, just tipping them. You represent a certain genius here. You have asked and answered your own questions.

Thank you very much. Exactly. Right. Absolutely. Tell you how it's to show you.

Exactly.

“And by the way, let's talk about a guest now where one has to do all the talking.”

Anybody? Oh. Yeah. Robert DeNiro. Yeah.

He's probably the most reticent guest who, perfectly lovely, you know, he just, it's just not his bag. That's. Yeah. Although nowadays, you just say the word Trump and he goes bananas.

He will talk to the moment. But you have to believe most of it. But as he is a regular guest for everybody here except for Mr. Oliver. He was my first. Yeah.

He was my first ever guest late night.

He was nice enough to do it. He had nothing to promote. I couldn't book the show to be honest. And so because I was following Conan and no one knew if the show was going to work or not. So I had to call in every favor.

I could get. And I figured he was a list in New York and he did me a solid. He was great. Okay. Come on.

Yeah. You know how poisonous this sounds. He was the only one in New York that would do you with favor was Donald Trump. Ouch. No.

De Niro. Oh. I thought you were talking about Trump. Oh, I kicked over that. Oh, no.

So De Niro is a pretty good favor. My apologies. I'm so sorry. From for not paying attention. Trump has done the done as favors by coming on as well.

Yeah. Well. Not the same ten workout as much. There's a special feeling that descends on you when you have like whatever your five or six questions which your may or may not hit, you know, at once you start with the guess.

You may need them. You may not. And then you realize not only do you need them, but you will be done with these five questions in the first 45 seconds. Yeah.

And then it's just a staring contest and at a certain level, that's invigorating. As you realize, it could be a disaster, and that's a kind of an exciting place to do. Yeah. I couldn't agree more.

I was always surprised at the high percentage of people who somehow were able

to reduce their heartbeat to almost undetectable and then have a seat getting ready to talk about their trip from California. I just thought, "How, isn't there some sort of minimal test of person has to pass to get into show business?" The worst is when they go, "No, I don't want to do a pre-interview.

We'll just wing it." Yeah. Just wing it. I'm a great guest. I'm a great guest.

I don't need to pre-interview. But we used to get all the time with Dave can ask me anything. And so you do that, and then you get the nasty call from the publicist. Yeah. Does everyone have a go-to story?

If you're at a dinner party, if you're at somewhere that you go like, "Oh, I guess I could do this story and let them up on." Hmm. Yeah, that happens all the time, although I've never been to a dinner party, but thank you. Do you think people don't ask you because they expect you'll say, "No?"

No, they just, they don't want me in their house. But the question I get is, "Who is your favorite guest?" Yeah.

“I just don't, I don't have, do you guys have a good answer for that question?”

I don't like any of that. 15. How can you answer? I think the person we probably brought up most frequently on this podcast is Charles Barkley, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Because he has no filter. Yeah. There's no, like, you say, you can't really pick a favorite, though, because there's

so many moments of things that people have done comedians and everybody's the list is crazy. I just want to say the relief I'm feeling right now. I was so close to saying, "Dave, who is your favorite guest?" Yeah. There you go.

The bullet that I've dodged. Some of my favorite guests from your show, Dave, and these are not particularly famous people.

But there was a performance artist named Brother Theodore, who you were always just fantastic

boy. Yeah. Who was, it seemed to be off his rocker was that, and was that a bitter was he actually crazy? I think that was an act.

He was, and what I know of him, thank you for that. That was that he was sort of a fixture of a holdover era in Greenwich Village when that was hipster, central, and poets, and, you know, folk singers, and Brother Theodore would be the comic relief, and the idea was he was wacky. And the other thing was he was the illegitimate son of Albert Einstein.

And he was great. Yeah. I don't know that one could use a guy like that these days.

“He would threaten the audience, he would threaten you, and I think German accent.”

Did he have a German accent? You seem to have. Brother Theodore was faker, not I never had the courage to inquire. Harvey Peacar was another one of Peacar. Oh my goodness, was he good, and I couldn't keep up with Harvey, because...

What was that? What was Harvey Peacar? He was the author of this comic strip called the American Dream.

He was a contrarian, and I think probably a communist, which was just great.

And he would be good, and then he would get ugly. And we wanted kind of the big time wrestling version of Harvey, not the ugly part of Harvey where all of us fat cat American pigs needed to die. That takes the fun right out of it. Yeah.

But Harvey was just delightful. I mean, that was really to sit back, and here we go. Speaking of delightful, Terry Garr was one of the great guests you have on the show. And there was a flirtation between the two of you, and she was on a lot of times. And if something you look forward to.

Yes, she was very good to us. She helped us kind of establish a legitimacy.

“And she and our producer at the time, Robert Morton, became, I think, and powers.”

And she and others always said that her frequent appearances on our show, her, her film

career. And I felt bad about that for her, because she was, you know, she was very good, very nice, and her film work also was great. And because she was too available, there was not too accessible to idiot behavior. Yeah, that's right.

Do you think you took the step Dave from idiotic behavior to role model, or someone people looked up to, or someone important or someone that we looked to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to explain it all to us, transcribed this question for Dave. Yeah, I'm going to need some, the thing that backs are in the question. Dave is that he's almost like a kind of episode of chops, but with the English language,

he will give you a selection of words, throw them in front of you, and ask you to assemble a question from those words. I thought that was great. I thought that was great. Where do you hear the answer of it?

I'd love to hear it. I don't, I'm going to need to, just try it again. Okay. When do you think you went from, uh, being like silly, post to kind of more serious, host and question and become kind of an, an important, hmmm.

I don't know. You, you guys can answer any of these questions from your own experience as well as I might. It, it seems to me, like there's a certain inertia that one can't keep up with and what results is, is, is change in the perception of what you're doing. I, I still, and I'm saying this, just, uh, still trying to make sense of the question.

[laughter] I've got, I've got, I've got this answer, we've got this whole podcast, man. We're going, but this is going in the promo. Promote. Really?

“No, that's the other thing, do people actually watch this?”

No. They listen to it. It's, yeah. I feel right at home. Dave, can I ask you about, what if your favorite, if you had a favorite Larry Bud, Melman

moment, because for me, it was sort of a somewhat failed Larry Bud, Melman game, but I loved

it, and me and my friends, because I started college in 1982, which was your first year.

I was sort of first generation obsessed with, with your show. People would leave parties to go home during the 2012-30, and when you had Larry travel the Pan American Highway, I thought it was the most wonderful thing. Every night you would check in, he'd be further south, I think he made it south of Mexico, and he brought, you brought a fax machine, one of the old kind where you put the phone

in the cradle, and he was begging you to come home, and it became apparent that it wasn't a bit. Right. And that the picture he was sending back was coming in line at a line, line by line. It was painting just one line at a time, just painting sadness on the screen, and the audience

is going, oh, yeah, but it was still wonderful to me. I'm curious, you have a brilliant memory of your kind to remember this positively, if

“in fact that's what I'm getting, but the idea was he was going to go to the tip of South”

America, and I can't remember the-- Sierra Delphuera Delphuera, yes, and so they were in some sort of a mid-level camper that they were going to drive from 30 rock all the way down to Sierra Delphuera, and when you look at Larry Butlerman, you think, camper. That's right.

And when you think road trip to Sierra Delphuera, let's go. So on the outside of the camper, we had painted a big plywood sign to Sierra Delphuera or bust, and so we sent them off, and well wishes, and you know, Godspeed, and we'll see it at the end of the world, and after the show, we get a call from the guy who was

I can't remember his name.

He said, yeah, we got a problem. We were on the New Jersey Turnpike, and the big six-by-10 plywood sign blew off in traffic. So the next call will be from the state police to give us the death toll of the sign miss-half on our fun trip to Sierra Delphuera. And then we started-- we would contact the state department, and they would give us warnings

about what part of Central America you should avoid at all cost. And we didn't share-- You can't avoid some of these countries. They go from coast to coast. That's right.

Like when the contract is in the Senate, these doesn't death toll. You're exactly right. We kind of kept that from Larry, and when he was getting ready to leave Mexico and journey

“into the great unknown, I remember that night specifically, because I thought the man”

he was begging me to come home.

Please, will you let me come home, and then--

On national television, not like that. That's right. I had two choices, one, I could just be a complete pot, and say, Larry, you signed a deal. You're going to tear it off, Wago. Now, guys, darn it.

Or I could say, now, come on home. And I think it was inevitable that he got to come home. But the other thing, the primitive technology-- that's what we were hanging the whole bit on-- was maybe you'll see a video, maybe you won't.

But one of those ideas, a better idea in theory than in execution. Well, if you would told me, you're going through Nicaragua. I have got contracts down there, because my mom dated Anastasia Somosa. And if you go back and listen to Episode 1 of the podcast, explains the whole thing.

Whoa, they have these pants, they have whose pants. Anastasia Somosa's pants. They're in the next room, hold on. Those are world-wide pants, by the way. They don't sound like a letterman dead from 1989.

The things that we'll take in a hard, right turn here, we're looking at somebody's pants. Before Stephen comes back, his mother had an affair with Somosa. Is that why you lowered your voice? Yes, here he's back.

Oh, here he's back now. Oh, hey, Stephen. All right, let's see those things. Anastasia Somosa went to the Sal Military Academy with my uncle. And he left these, and he'd stay with my family

when they were on vacation. And he went on some dates with my mom. He thought she was too skinny.

The first thing he said around the first day was,

you have been ill. And--

“Have you said where she had a nickel for every time?”

I heard that. So it says, it's hard to read, but it says, a Somosa in the pants. I have Anastasia. I have the pants of a brutal dictator. Whoa, well, I mean, we're a half an hour into this.

Why now? Why wasn't this the headline? Absolutely. And we've asked that. Wait for the right.

I was waiting for the right time. Oh, well, I just feel sheepish. I'm sorry. I wasted everybody's time with my little Larry Buds story. What did you bring us, Dave?

I can show you my pants. Dave, I asked you about this the last time we spoke. But since Stephen mentioned his mother, your mom was such a fantastic guest on your show. And a very midwestern woman is it safe to say that her success on your show did not go to her head?

Oh, no. I went right to her head and to her husband's head. They had her out of signing. She published a cookbook, and many of the recipes in the cookbook were lifted right out of the Betty Crocker cookbook and we were all waiting to get the call.

Yeah, she loved it.

“She really loved it and as I, at this point in my life, I think about my relationship”

with my mother far more than I did when she was alive. And I don't know if that's common or if there's pathology there. But I reassure myself that that time in her life on our show was something nice I did for her because other than that, I'm not, I think I was a difficult child. Thank you.

Let's go around the room and identify ourselves as being difficult children. Jimmy? What did she understand what you did, like, did your mom have like, no, did she watch the show every night? No, she didn't watch the show, like most of America.

But she, no, she watched when she was on, like this, I'll watch this because I'm all. Your mother's, you had a mother's day top 10 this once and my mom, you were nice not to invite my mom as one of the mothers to come out and it was different celebrities mother's saying a joke and then at the end you would give them all a rose. And I think my mom's joke, it was like Beyonce's mom,

(laughing)

It was a eclectic list, and so they went down to the list.

My mom was probably halfway through, and you went to everyone's mom, and you go, "Thank you for being here." And you give them a rose. Thank you for being here, and you give them a rose. You get to my mom and you go, "Thank you for being here." And you give her a rose, my mom goes, "What?"

(laughing) And you go, "Thank you for being here." And you gave her another rose. So by the time you got to your own mother, you were out of roses. (laughing)

She had nothing to give your own mother, and it was because my mom said,

"Thought she was special, and thought you were saying an extra compliment to my mother." She was like, "What? "I'm a star, I should come back on the show, co-hosted to you." I don't know what she thought you were saying, but I go, "Mom, why would you mess up the whole thing?" I love this because this is the kind of thing that would happen minute to minute, night to night,

week after week, month after month, year after year, putting on a nightly television program that is completely meaningless to anybody but the group of us here. I remember the one right before I took over 11 o'clock at CVS. I asked if I could come by and just talk to you and you said, "Sure." So it's about a week and a half before you left, and I want to talk to you while you're still in the saddle.

And you nicely met me outside of your office and a little room there, and I asked you a bunch of questions. We've just jotted for a while, and I asked you some questions about specific stuff, about where do you stand, and how do you relate to the audience and the balcony,

“and I just stuff about the building, and I said, "I'm sorry, am I asking you too many questions?”

Are you okay on change questions?" And you said, "Steven's known as ever asked me any of these questions before." And I said, "Really? No one's ever asked you," and you said, "Who would care to know that?" Well, it's exactly right. To us, it's a pretty narrow corridor. Could you, in the next room, there's a pair of old work pants.

I'd say I'd say I'd have a pair of Hitler's pants. Could you just turn his mic off? OK, I'm sorry. Where were we? Can you just write Nori Aika in the back of it before?

Well, I want to hear something about now, how long have you been on your show? Well, before you do that, I've got a question that's not about you, Dave, so you might like that. One of the things that I loved, you know, the hardest I loved during your final show, was where your son Harry brought his friend. Yeah.

And he wanted you to introduce Tommy Rabat that was his name.

“I'll never forget it, because it's almost a perfect writer's room name for the friend of a child.”

Tommy Rabat, or even as an English person, I know, that's perfect. And what I loved was not only how happy you were at being forced to do this, but the fact he got such an evasion from the audience. And Harry looked a little bit awkward being on camera. You seemed a little bit unsure that most confident person in that room was Tommy Rabat.

He was just laughing up that evasion. What is Tommy Rabat doing now? I spent a week with Tommy and his family and my family in Greenland, and Tommy is a sophomore at Boston College. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

That's very, that's very sweet of you, John. Thank you. He's a great kid, and they've been family friends forever. You just look so good. You've done your show. 10, 10 years. 10 years. And Jimmy, I did late night for six years. I want to say that. I've done tonight show for almost six years. Wow. So 12 years and you know, Mr. Jimmy? 20. 20. Wow. And Seth. 10 in February. And Steven, about ten plus, right? Or actually you can be nine and a half for the old show eight for this one. So 17 and a half. Wow.

And how do we feel though? Still like it's broken broken. You know, you know, like, you know, one of those old horses where someone not kindly puts their hand around your neck and says, hey, come on. Let's go have carrots. You think I've not been in this barn before.

“Wow. This is honest, like I think over the last three years, I kind of started to figure out how to interview people. Yeah.”

And it really just, they're COVID made me interview people differently because there was just over zoom. So there's no audience or anything. And they would just come on the screen and we would just start talking. That's actually way better than than having there was no anxiety about it.

I'm a totally different interviewer in the last four years than I was for the first 13. Yeah. I think that's I went through a period of that long long before COVID.

And as a result, I would just start talking to people and we'd be 20 minutes over every night. You said to me, bad night, I came to see you. I said, do you have any advice? And he said, yes, just keep talking. Let them figure it out. That's right. That's right. And I said, if it took too long to get what you wanted to the interview, they should get you better guess.

That's right. That's right. My wife says, I don't know what else you would do. This has kind of saved me because she's like, I think this is perfect job for you. You get to talk to people.

“You get to do bits. You get to do sketches. You get to whatever idea you think of weirdly, you get to see. You get to make and it's kind of fascinating.”

I saw when Paul and the band were on your show, I thought it was tremendous. I just think, wow, this kid's got a very nice show here. Ah, it was great. I love that it was great. Even just to do here in the theme again and stuff is pretty fun. It was electric in the room. Yeah. And there was some very involved musical presentation. And I was talking to Paul and he said, yeah, you know, it came time to rehearse and they sent down a guy to rehearse with it.

It wasn't Jimmy and I said, so you never really rehearse that song with Jimmy and he said, no.

And so when I'm watching the show, holy, it was seamless. It was like, oh, is this for the Tony's? It was crazy. Yeah, I think we had a fake dummy, a thrown down the audience pretending to be me crowds. That was me. That was actually me. Oh, you were great. You look like a dummy. Now, Jimmy does it hurt your feelings when the crew says, Jimmy's not available. Get the fake dummy. I'm used to it now. They get it. They do it more than they normally do. He works more than I do.

One of the greatest things I've ever seen was that your Mark Twain Award presentation. Oh, please. Where you had your actual psychiatrist speak about you. And it was, I mean, it was first of all medically inappropriate, but secondly, the violation of the hippocratico. Just a funny, it's got damn thing I've ever seen.

Well, you know, I wanted it to be really funny. And I thought it would be really funny. And guess what? It wasn't that funny. It was fun. It was fun. Those Mark Twain ones are pretty tough. They're tough crowd that they've got.

“Oh, my God. It was the very best for those I've seen. Well, two, Bill Murrays was really good. And Dave Chappelle was just, that's what you want.”

That's really what you want. And he was fantastic.

Tommy was at that Mark Twain prize. Tommy was with you. I know. And I can remember. I was just saying that even at Mark Twain, you're judging what's working and what's not work.

Oh, it was all. They're honoring your whole career and yet your moment to moment. This was a bad idea. Remember, as we're all, there was a half a dozen of us changing clothes in a public restaurant after the show. And it was Jimmy and his boxer shorts or whatever, me and my under.

It was just, you want to know the real story of what happened there? Yeah. So you went into the bathroom to change. And I thought it would be funny to take off all my clothes and walk into the bathroom. Okay.

So I took off all my clothes, say, for my underwear.

And I walked into the bathroom and Dave reacted as if I was fully dressed. He's like, hey, how are you doing? And then I wound up with you and Martin Short having a long chat. I was in my underwear. That didn't bother you at all.

And we thought we were waiting for Harry to come out of one of the stalls. Turns out Harry had already. It was with the rest of the family. Yeah.

“I think Harry had actually come in seeing everybody in their underpants and decided.”

Maybe this is not for me. Yeah. Does Harry hate a knight where he's sitting with you? Well, his dad's being honored or does he enjoy it? Well, in the night at the dinner table.

He is a show business averse. And it's taking me a long time to not take that personally. But yeah, he has no interest in show business. Every now and then I will hear. Just like his dad.

Yeah. But what about you guys? Everybody here has grown kids, right? Yeah. No, good ones.

No, no, no. Just tell older years. Just tell you that. Seven and five. Oh, that's tremendous.

Boys, they're all two boys to girl. No, two boys, it's the greatest. They could have less respect for me and I couldn't be happy with this situation. Yeah. Good.

Yeah. Well, that will continue. And Jimmy, Mr. Fallon, what about you? I have two little girls at 10-year-old and an eight-year-old. And they're the best.

And just so cute. They know what they do and they're kind of hearing now through school and stuff. No, I know you're dad, you know, through YouTube or something. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

But girls, do we know for a fact or are 10 to be all together a different energy than young boys at that same age? Yes. I don't have them. So I went out with a friend who has young boys around the same age.

And we're all sitting there.

My girls were writing, practicing, writing with their about a pens and the writing drawing something. And his son was jumping into a wall. Like maybe 10, 15 times in a row. Just practicing the old wall mode.

Dave, you'll enjoy this. I have a seven-year-old son. He's my oldest. I have two boys in a girl. My seven-year-old said to me the other day,

“I believe I've said this on the podcast,”

but he said, "When you die, do I get your show?" That was really nice. Whoa. Yeah. Well, it certainly would have been cleaner than some of the network's

successes that have taken place. Yeah. That was just in place. I mean, why don't they? That would be so nice if things worked like that.

It's called monarchy, Dave. That's enough. Dave, since I have you here, I want to tell you a story. Only to see what your reaction is to it.

And what your perspective is. Yesterday, last podcast, we were all asked. Answering the question, "How did you find out you were going to get your show?" And I said, "I actually don't want to tell the story. I want to tell the story in case Dave's ever.

We just said, "A upcoming guest comes on." So I want to tell you how I found out about 1130. Okay. And if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind knowing what your perspective is on that, because I don't know if they match.

Okay. Okay.

“So I never thought I would host a talk show,”

because I was an actor, and I was doing Colbert Report. It was an act. It was basically a 10-year-long sketch. And I get a call from James Babydoll Dixon, my manager. Also, Jimmy's manager, Jimmy Kimmel's manager,

and he says, "Hey, let's move as wants to meet you." And I said, "I've already met, let's move as what do you mean?" He goes, "I don't know. We want to meet you at his apartment." So we go to his apartment on Park Avenue.

This is in November of 2013. And I go in, and he immediately, Julie's there, she's very nice. We sit down, it's a lovely apartment, as one can imagine. And he goes in, he starts talking about how he likes the show,

and they're thinking about 11, 30, and what they're going to do after you. And I said, "I need to just stop right here and say, that's lovely that you would want to talk to me.

This was never in the plan for me."

But if we're really going to have this conversation, I need to know the Dave knows about that. I can't have this conversation if Dave doesn't know that these conversations are going on. And he said, "Dave called me recently." And he said, "I know there's going to come a day,

where you're going to have to start talking to people. Well, you're going to have to start talking to people." That day is arrived. And I said, "Okay." So he knows you're having these conversations.

Yes. Okay, so then we got a conversation. We leave, we walk out on the street, and I said to James, "Baby doll, I go." What was that?

Did I just get offered 11, 30? On CBS, and he goes, "Baby, I don't know. Let me get into it." I could, that was the weirdest fucking meeting I've ever been in. I can't tell what just happened.

And so he calls me, he lets it rest for a bit. He calls me a couple weeks later, and he goes, "Yeah, yeah." But they kind of want to know if you want it before they offer it. So they said, "Yeah, do you want it?" And I said, "No, I don't want it."

And he goes, "What do you mean you don't want it?" And I said, "I, the last thing I thought I would do next was something harder than my last show." And he goes, "It's not going to be harder. It's going to be easier."

And for which he has since apologized. And I said, "Yeah, I know, but I don't want to do it." Because my mom had just died. And I got into comedy really, not consciously. But because of my mom, making her laugh deaf,

my father and my brothers had died when it was younger. And that was clear to me. Like, "Oh, my God. Why am I doing this?" If mom's not here to call and say, "I saw the show every so often."

And so I don't want to do it.

And he said, "This offer never comes again."

You want, I want you to think about this. Because I had a plan to do another show. I already knew what it was going to be. I was going to take my character from the old show and put him in an narrative about what he did after he left the show.

Because you can do that anytime. You can only do this once. I said, "Well, the answer is no. If I have to answer now." And he goes, "What if I gave you some time?"

And I said, "Okay." There goes, "How good are you? How much time can you give me?" He goes, "Mid April." I said, "Wow.

It's November." "You can give me to mid April." And he said, "Yeah." Yeah, I said, "Wow, you're really good." And he goes, "Let's see how good I am."

So nothing. I immediately, that Friday I stopped that. Start therapy. And I go through four months of therapy. Find out what's going on.

A little bit under the hood, if you don't know what to mean.

“And I think it's April 11th that the drummer for R.M.”

Tweets that you have announced that you're going to be leaving the show. And I call James, and I say, "Turn on CNN. Because Wolf Blitzers talking about something you want to hear about. Because Wolf is reporting it for the show that night. Because it's big news that you're leaving.

I don't know if you knew this was headline news that you were leaving." And I said, "Oh, and he goes, "Yeah, they're probably going to call." And I said, "How long before they call? He goes two or three days."

And he better have your answer ready.

And I said, "Okay."

“So I call my sister Mary, who is my eldest sister.”

And she's 15 years my senior. And I say, "Can you come up? I want to talk to you." Because this is about mom. And I said, "It's kind of about mom."

So she comes up and she, "I come home from work that night from the Colbert report." She's sitting on the couch and I make her an old fashion. And I make myself an old fashion." And I said, "And she goes, "Kiddo, what's on your mind?" And I said, "Well, you know, Dave is announced that he's leaving."

And she bursts into this huge smile. And I laughed out loud. And I said, "Merry, if this show works out, if the late show ends up being successful with me at the desk, CBS, you're really sending you flowers.

Because I'm going to do it because you smile." So that's how that happened. But the reason I want to ask your perspective on it is, when it was going to be announced, like the next day or two days later, that I was going to give him the answer and then that we're going to announce it.

Maybe I can't remember how long before you came up to you, major announcement. I got a message saying, "Yeah, I don't don't say anything about November. It just, it just, it's happened this week." And I said, "Huh."

"Okay, I can understand how that might be like a cleaner way to tell this story. But it made me wonder whether that no Dave knows this is happening. What's happening was true or not."

“So I'm curious from your perspective, how did that go down?”

This, first of all, it's a very nice story. And touching and it's a lovely story. And your sister and all and the process, I would have conversations with less from time to time about how much longer I would be at the network.

But they were always general.

And I don't recall ever talking to him about, "Please start the search, begin talking to people." I'm certain that that part didn't happen. Now, he probably inferred that from our general conversations. But that's a great story.

What comes to mind is something quite similar when I was at NBC. Dave's tablet and Henry Bushkin, who was Johnny's attorney, came to talk to me and we went to lunch one day. And they wanted to sign me up to host the tonight show, part time, and Johnny would host it, part time.

So that meant that I would do Monday, Tuesday. He would do Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or some version of that. And this would thereby begin the transition. And Stephen, exactly like you, I said to them, "Have you spoken to Johnny about this?"

And they said, "No, not exactly." And I said, "Okay, well, I can't sign on here for that." The other part of my departure at CBS, the next day they had dumpsters out on the sidewalk, and got it the theater and heaved every bit of our program.

Into the dumpsters. And to this day, people come up to me with theater seats. Is that when you sign this for me? So nice and special. I asked because I asked, "What's going to happen to that?"

And they said, "It's already gone." I said, "What's right?" The next day they tore all down. I felt horrible. Yeah, Adios and good night.

That's right. Our set builders actually went and retrieved some of that stuff. And there are little pieces of your set built into the frame of our set. Like inserted in the framework as like a talisman good luck. A higher honor I couldn't have hoped for.

[laughter] You got any more garbage. I'd love it. Anybody else have a burning question for days? Well, I just want to, if you could get that pair of pants from Starland.

[laughter]

If you guys can hang on one second.

Did your mom date Joe? Yeah. Yeah, she did. If it'll help the story. [laughter]

Dave, I don't. I don't take you, Dave, as a souvenir guy. Did you keep anything? No.

“I tell you the only thing I did keep when the built my office at the Enceliment Theatre building.”

It was a shower and a bathroom and stuff. And I was happy. You get to be my age. It doesn't make you happier than a bathroom. And in the sink, they couldn't get one of those.

So they just put a plug on a chain and wrapped a chain around the faucet. So it was the combination of, oh, this is a mid-level hotel and Rikers Island. [laughter] The only thing I took out of there was the chain with the stopper. And I was actually twirling it last night.

So yeah, pathetic. Of course it's pathetic. No, it's not. Wow.

You're thinking chain. Yeah, that's right. Thank you, Dave. This was a real treat.

“Yeah, I hope I didn't ruin the dang show for Ryan Reynolds.”

There's a guy who's taken something right off the top of this. Oh, you know that. I think that's good. Well, Jimmy, thank you very much. And John, thank you very much.

And Seth, thank you very much. And Stephen, thank you very much. And God bless everybody. And I hope you guys get back to work. Thank you for this.

We appreciate it. David. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, everybody. And we need you to read a few mid-mobile ads.

That was nice. By the way, Goody Letterman's YouTube channel. Letterman is the name of the channel. And these bits, they hold up so well.

It's really incredible how funny.

There's a bit called the Fat Guy, the Strong Guy and the Genius that comes with a theme song that is just a golden golden moment. I should stress though. You go to that Letterman YouTube page. And it really breaks your heart in a way. How many A plus bits that show has someone who has one of these shows.

“And you realize, I think we could, I think we could fill a page.”

But once you start scrolling down, I start losing confidence that you're still going to have great bits. And it is so impressive. Can we ask him back? I want to do that hour and 20 minutes again. I know, isn't it?

I was like, I was, I almost couldn't ask anything because I only wanted to listen. But he doesn't like to hear. He doesn't. How great he is. You know, it becomes difficult because we love these moments and these bits that he gave us.

And, you know, he's, he's Dave. Well, there you go. All right. Can we do a commercial? Sure.

You know, we started this podcast to support the people who support us.

And we want to take a moment to thank our friends at kettle 1 vodka for making Strike Force 5 possible. Our shows obviously wouldn't be what I all without writers. And kettle 1 family might vodka wouldn't be what it is without bartenders. Tent generation to still your owner.

Corrolous, no-let senior. It's been nearly a decade developing kettle 1. He turned to bartenders for advice on everything from the taste to the optimal length of the bottle. Yeah. It's interesting.

I like the way you pronounce the two set. It was like that previous show we're talking about where things are spelled out phonetically. Corrolous, no-let does sound like someone who dated Steven's mom. And it's not the length of the bottle. It's the motion in the potion.

In the potion. Thank you. It is invaluable input from bartenders. If you guys agree with me here. And bartenders seal of approval that makes kettle 1 so special.

Anyone here sits at a serious question. Anyone here ever bartender? Yes. Of course. Really?

Yeah. Where? At J.B. winberries in episode 10. At the Chicago Sporting Club on Michigan Avenue. Nice.

John? I did a bunch of places. One of which was our local theater because you used to get free tickets to see the comedian who was on there. One of whom was Eddie his heart. He was a good comedian to see.

I think I've jumped behind bars. And wasn't really asked to bartender. I've at least been at three different bars where you've done that. And how was that received by the crowd? Well, it was going to be honest.

No bartender was upset when Fallen went over the bar. But it's very funny that he thought that was a maybe thing he did. Definitely. We at Strike Force World Command share a commitment to craft hospitality and community.

“And that's what we're glad to have Kettle 1 support helping to keep the creative and hardworking people impacted by the current strike afloat.”

Thank you, Kettle 1. Thank you, Kettle 1.

And as always, please drink responsibly.

Kettle 1 vodka 40% alcohol volume. Kettle 1 USA, Alisa Viejo, California. That was one of our best. Yeah, I mean, we actually worked in a personal anecdote a couple of personal anecdotes while still nailing the copy. I mean, absolutely nailing it.

Yeah, it's a bummer letter and couldn't stay to see it. I think you would have really appreciate it. You should get them back on just to show what we did. Let's see. The smartest thing we did was make him leave before we did our ad read.

Let me just. It was no coincidence that I let him go before the ad read came. I don't want you to see this. I actually panicked when he was on in the beginning. I'm like, "We had a ad read. He can't be here already."

You've got to tell him 12-10. Well, there you go. Well, I was exciting. And Dave did indeed invite himself on the show. We wanted to invite him on the show, but he beat us to it.

So that was fun. If he's listening to this right now, knowing how much he loves and see a compliments, he has thrown already his phone out of the window. Yeah. He's on a channel.

He's no longer listening and he needs a new phone. He loves midmobile. If you don't want to think about Dave, he loves the concept of midmobile.

What?

“I mean, before we get to, I just want to say thanks to our sponsors,”

all of our sponsors, kettle 1, midmobile,

and what was that you were saying, Jimmy? That we're called Strike Force 5. It wouldn't have been weird without it. Hey, everybody, before we go, just want to talk to you about the merchandise. You can get from our good friends, Strike Force 5.

If you get a t-shirt, you can get a hat. You can get a pad. All of proceeds, of course, go to some very, very good cause that we will soon discover. What we did was very wise.

“We waited till almost the end of the run of our podcast,”

to produce a tremendous number of t-shirts, hats, and pens. Now we're going to be left with those if you don't pie them. So Strike Force 5, fiv.com, to get your limited edition collectors item merchandise with words, Strike Force, and 5, and we're going to throw in a lightning bolt with every purchase.

So this is like we opened a spirit Halloween in November. Is that what you're saying? Just off to Halloween, people agreed with it.

They were never going to have it again.

We didn't know it was anything.

“We could have gone off for another six months.”

We got it as letter by some merch. He's got a lot of money. Maybe that could be what he does for us, you know? We should have made sure the guild negotiators were making clear that when the Strike ended, the studios had to pay for the leftover merch.

Maybe we could trick the sag after actors into thinking this, these shirts or for them. Sure. Sure, why not? Go to Strike Force 5.com by shit.

If you were going to buy one of the items which would be John Oliver, which one of the three items would be your choice. And all of them in bulk to try and mitigate the losses from this entirely foreseeable catastrophe. Well, it's hurricane season still.

So you could use it to fill up a sand. There's no better delicious shit. There's no better delicious shit. There's no better delicious shit. What could in a hurricane?

Wearing. Try Force 5. Did the pens work? Now the strike is over. Where is the answer to that?

No, we have not. We have not.

The reality is we haven't done any QC.

We're nonworking pens. That was an interesting move. That's what we're going to do. [BLANK_AUDIO]